Susan E. Klepp is the author of Revolutionary Conceptions , a book that is about the life of women during the 18th Century. She describes how pregnancies took an important place in women’s life and how it affected them. The author defines every aspect that is disturbed by pregnancy in the life cycle of women. She does not focus on a special group of women; she included the rich and the poor, the slaves and the freeman and the rural and urban women. Overall, Susan Klepp argued that from the American Revolution, women gained power and authority in their life through the control of their pregnancies. To begin, the author argued that women are trying to reduce birth rates to have smaller families. Women developed new techniques to have less children …show more content…
like getting married later, spacing the children and stop birth earlier. These techniques might be effective, but the point is, do women are really trying to reduce birth rates to gain power and authority or just because they cannot afford to have a big family? Klepp is contradicting economists because they blamed poverty on a too big population, which can imply that poor families have too many children to meet their needs. The reason why women are trying to reduce the birth rates stays vague because there could be many reasons and the author focuses mostly on women’s intrinsic motivation. Also, Klepp claimed that women’s rights emerged from that time period.
This is an ambiguous argument because it could be easily disproved since it might be a question of timing that women’s rights and low birth rates happened simultaneously. On the other hand, according to portraits, the situation of women definitely changed. Before the 18th Century women were portrayed with fruits because it was a symbol of productivity and they had bestial traits. In contrast, men looked very authoritative like they own everything. Later on, things changed, instead of looking like animals, women looked more virtuous, mature and thoughtful. More books were drawn on portraits, which mean that women were starting to educate themselves. Rather than being portrayed with silhouettes and curves, women’s body became privatized. Those facts demonstrate the switch in the ideology of household and …show more content…
childbearing. Klepp presents the fact that women are developing new methods of contraception. The primary method that is used is the male withdrawal before ejaculation. The author argued that it is a new technique that people used to reduce pregnancies, but it could have been used from a long time ago and it was not known. This technique was part of their private life and Klepp uses it as a convincing point, but it has not emerged from the Revolution. However, it is accurate to say that there was new other ways to low birth rates spread. Women talked together of the means to stop unwelcome pregnancies and they come up with methods like horseback riding, jumping rope, herbal and mineral potions. Moreover, stereotypes that were degrading women started to fade. Previously, menstruation, childbearing and fertility were under the control of women, but there was a small shift from midwife to doctors. Men doctors were starting to be more interested in the reproductive system of women since the Enlightenment, which is really a plausible argument. Science is taking more place in people’s life and so did biology. In addition, Klepp well defined the two categories of women, the deviant and the normal. For the deviant women, mostly prostitutes, it was acceptable to use condoms to both protect women from pregnancy and men from venereal infections, but for normal women it was prohibited. This principle is about logic and about this philosophy that the purpose of sex is for reproduction. The author uses a law in Pennsylvania to demonstrate that the murderer of a live-born child will face murder charges, which is the reason why women are trying to kill the baby beforehand. Lastly, Klepp compares and contrast women of Germany and Pennsylvania, which illustrated that women in Germany had less communicating methods. In other words, it means that women could not talk to each other about their new ideas and ways to reduce births. According to the author, this could explain why the birth rates started earlier to low in America. In her novel, the author used mostly primary sources.
She included many portraits, which comes well with her arguments and it is easy for the readers to visualize it. The negative aspect of the portraits is that she did not include every one of them; there are at least 16 portraits that she wrote about but not include in her book. She could have included a link in the footnote for the reader to look for it online. Klepp also used many written sources such as diaries, letters, newspapers and novels. Newspapers are a good primary source for this book because it allowed the author to understand the society at that time and what they focuses on. To illustrate the different birth rates per region she used many statistical data like census records and church records. Those graphics are an interesting source because the reader can see the difference by himself and the author describes and introduces nicely every graph. The last critique of the book is about the missing bibliography, the organization of the sources would have been easier for the reader with a bibliography. A positive aspect is that Klepp commented in the footnotes, which could be
interesting. To finish, Revolutionary Conceptions was an attractive book because pregnancy during the American Revolution is not a common subject. Sometimes, people forget that women had to work hard to gain power and authority in life. Pregnancy was a great start to obtain power over their body. Some parts of the book could have been shorter, the author was repeating herself a little, but most of her arguments were convincing. The use of primary sources like portraits and graphs, which really enhanced the understanding since the reader can see what the author is describing. For future research, it might be interesting to analyze the birth rate from the 18th to the 20th Century since it is continuously decreasing.
Dorothy Wardell’s article titled “Margaret Sanger: Birth Control’s Successful Revolutionary” explains what inspired Sanger ideas on contraception and what problems she faced while working to change the notions and laws on Birth Control. The central argument presented by Wardell is that Sanger’s efforts led to privileges for women’s bodies and health centers providing methods for women to act on these privileges (Wardell, 736). Although Wardell is effective in supporting her argument, it would be stronger if she included some historical context and evidence of Sanger’s opinion in her own words found in a speech of hers and in Family Limitation.
The 19th Century is an age that is known for the Industrial Revolution. What some people don’t realize is the effect that this revolution had on gender roles in not only the middle and upper classes (Radek.) It started off at its worst, men were considered powerful, active, and brave; where as women were in no comparison said to be weak, passive, and timid (Radek.) Now we know this not to be true, however, back in the day people only went by what would allow ...
The education of an author on their topic is the biggest contributor to their reliability; having enough prior knowledge and background information on a subject is crucial when providing a historical analysis. An author’s personal background is of great importance as well, because their personal heritage and beliefs may lead to bias and misrepresentation of information, which removes all credibility of them and/or their work as source. Partiality, favoritism, and/or prejudice towards a specific demographic can create a blurred line between what is fact and what is opinion, which in turn can allow for personal assessments to be presented as arguments and facts even though they have been influenced to a great extent by prior thoughts and opinions.
Sanger, Margaret. "The Morality of Birth Control." Gifts of Speech. Smith College, 2012. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
Women throughout time have been compelled to cope with the remonstrances of motherhood along with society’s anticipations
Today, women and men have equal rights, however, not long ago men believed women were lower than them. During the late eighteenth century, men expected women to stay at home and raise children. Women were given very few opportunities to expand their education past high school because colleges and universities would not accept females. This was a loss for women everywhere because it took away positions of power for them. It was even frowned upon if a woman showed interest in medicine or law because that was a man’s place, not a woman’s, just like it was a man’s duty to vote and not a woman’s.
"A free race cannot be born" and no woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother"(Sanger A 35). Margaret Sanger (1870-1966)said this in one of her many controversial papers. The name of Margaret Sanger and the issue of birth control have virtually become synonymous. Birth control and the work of Sanger have done a great deal to change the role of woman in society, relationships between men and woman, and the family. The development and spread of knowledge of birth control gave women sexual freedom for the first time, gave them an individual identity in society and a chance to work without fearing they were contributing to the moral decline of society by leaving children at home. If birth control and Sanger did so much good to change the role of women in society why was birth control so controversial?
Margaret Sanger’s monthly publication The Woman Rebel released its first issue in 1914, creating a nationwide dispute concerning the publication and distribution of birth control devices. However, Sanger’s initial goal went beyond simply legalizing the distribution of contraceptives; her aim was to create “radical social change, embracing the liberation of women and of the working class” (6, 1.120). In document one, the essay “Why the Woman Rebel?” Sanger makes a strong political statement on the social implications of legalizing birth control. Drawing heavily from the plight of the working class Sanger makes her case on the grounds that the legalization of birth control is the first step to the liberation of the disenfranchised working class at the hands of capitalism. The essay is a rebellious prose intended to inspire “revolt”, a call to arms for the case for birth control. Later in Sanger’s care...
“When a motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race." (Margaret Sanger, 1) Margaret Sanger, known as the founder of birth control, declared this powerful statement. It is reality that the rights that are customary for women in the twentieth century have been the product of the arduous physical and mental work of many courageous women. These individuals fought for the right for women to be respected in both mind and body by bestowing on them the rights to protect their femininity and to gain the equivalent respect given to men. A remarkable woman named Margaret Sanger is the individual who incredibly contributed to the feministic revolution that took place in the 1920’s. Her legacy of making the right to use birth control legal for woman is a precedent in history for the foundation of the equal rights battle that is still being fought today. By giving control back to the women in their sexuality, Margaret Sanger also restored confidence in those women who felt that their lives revolved around pregnancy. She has become an influential icon to women all around the world who enjoy the security of birth control that gives them the freedom in their sexuality on a daily bases.
In 1850 society the new republic altered the role of women by making the differences of men and women in society more noticeable, by giving them a higher status, and allowing them to demand more rights and think for freely.
“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body”. Margaret Sanger stated this quote for the purpose of letting all women know that they should have the choice to make decisions about their own body whenever plausible. She seemed to feel as though, if women can’t obtain control over what they want to do with their body, then they can never truly be free in other manners as well. Sanger is an amazingly determined woman who was able to give all women the chance to gain control and power over their body. Margaret Sanger is an important figure in the 1920s American History because not only did she create and establish the first birth control clinics, but she also gave women the chance to take control over their body.
She then talks about the morality of the women who would partake and how women’s rights have been innovating up until this point and implies that this would be the next great step for the advancement of women’s rights. She presents the idea that primitive forms of birth control are no longer ethical in today’s society as their methods would violate various mores that have been set by present day society by saying that that “primitive men have achieved the same results by infanticide, exposure of infants, abandonment of children, and abortion.” She uses examples of seemingly barbaric primitive methods to exemplify that in present times there is a need for a more civilized and humane method of family planning. By using this extreme example, Sanger effectively appeals to ethos to hopefully persuade the audience by showing how the old methods would themselves be contradictory to the set of morals the opposers are trying so hard to hold on to.
In Of Woman Born, Adrienne Rich effectively weaves her own story into a convincing account of what it means to become a mother within the bonds of patriarchal culture. Her conclusion that the institution of motherhood, which she distinguishes from motherhood, must be destroyed in order to release the creation and sustenance of life into the same realm of decision, struggle, surprise, imagination, and conscious intelligence, as any other difficult, but freely chosen work is substantiated by her courageous confession that contradicts culturally normative notions of motherhood.
"People and Events: The Pill and the Sexual Revolution." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
...he second way to attempt to decrease the population is through increased active family planning programs. Especially in poor countries, it is a lot harder for women just to jump into the work force, and even harder for a poor country to become industrialized. For example, in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, birth rates have decreased from seven children per family to only 5.5. This is largely because forty percent of Bangladesh's woman now take part in some form of family planning.